Books for Breakfast - Book Reviews With a Twist:
A blog about books. And cocktails. Nothing is more literary than alcoholism.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

49. "The Double Bind" - Chris Bohjalian

Laurel was the victim of a violent interaction with two men while biking a lonely Vermont road. She pushes this out of her mind until she finds a photo of a lone biker that looks like herself - taken by a homeless man.

Using the characters from The Great Gatsby was an interesting literary device; however, it has been so long since I read it that I had to refer to online notes to nudge my memory.

This book pretends to ask the question, "Why would a man with family connections and money be homeless?" But, like most Bohjalian books, things are not what they appear to be. Unfortunately, Bohjalian seemed to concentrate more on the mystery of his story than the development of Laurel's character.

No spoilers here... I will simply say that if the whole book could have had some of the vitality of the last ten pages, I would have enjoyed reading it, rather than feeling like I was biking uphill the entire way.

3 comments:

This book was my first by Chris Bohjalian and I did not care for it. Chris and I communicated back and forth several times via e-mail and I found him to be a very kind and gentle soul. I'm aware that just being kind doesn't make you a writer, but I do believe I owe Chris a second chance. :)